Page 81 of Ivory Ashes

“If you were worried about your little friend, you’d let me put as much distance between us and that coffee shop as possible.”

She snorts. “You’re not actually jealous of Tommy.”

Of course I’m not. Ridiculous.

“I’m going to do something stupid if I hear his name come out of your mouth one more time,” I snarl. My knuckles are white around the steering wheel.

“Who is this little show for?” She twists towards me, her leg curled onto the leather seat so I can see the creamy white skin of her inner thigh. “You haven’t spoken to me in days. You’ve been pushing me away ever since our not-a-date date night—which was your idea, by the way. You want to get to know me, but you don’t want to be in the same room with me. Make that make sense.”

None of this makes sense.

Nothing about Viviana and the hold she has on my thoughts or my emotions or my dick makes any fucking sense.

“You don’t want me, but no one else can have me, either? Is that it?” she continues. “I don’t understand who this little show is for. Are you trying to convince Tommy you care about me? Because he’s gone. There’s no one to act for. You can go back to ignoring me.”

“You said his name,” I growl.

The road is blurring in front of me. Blood pounds in my temples and in my balls. My body is too big for my skin and I’m going to explode.

I rip off the main road into an alley between buildings. I swerve around a rusted-out dumpster and turn into a water-logged loading bay. It’s dark and cool and the noise from the street has faded to a blur.

But Viviana is in full clarity.

“Why are we stopping here?” she asks, a hint of fear in her voice.

She’s all I can hear. All I can smell. All I can see. Touch and taste are begging to join the party.

When I close my eyes, I see her at the table with another man. Smiling at him. Laughing with him. Would she have gone home with him if I hadn’t shown up? Fucked him?

“You were partially right,” I breathe. “No one else can have you.”

But I still want her.

Her brows pinch together and her full lips are parted in an angry pout. “What are you doing, Mikhail?”

Before she can say something else infuriating, I grab Viviana around the waist and drag her over the console onto my lap.

“Something stupid.”

29

MIKHAIL

Viviana’s thighs sink around me like we were made to fit together this way.

I drag my hands up her legs, shoving her skirt up around her waist until I can see the pale pink triangle of her panties.

“I’ve dreamed about this,” I murmur. “About what I’d do if I ever got between your legs again.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Give you what you want.” I slide my thumb under the delicate material of her panties, dipping into the wetness between her folds. “Fuck. I can feel how much you want it. You must like it when I take you from another man. First, Trofim and now?—”

She shakes her head. “Tommy wasn’t?—”

I band my hand around her throat. “Don’t say his name. The only name I want to hear on your lips is mine. I want you to scream it.”

I unzip my pants and free my erection, stroking myself as I touch her.

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